Confessions of an Oracle Database Junkie - Arup Nanda
The opinions expressed here are mine and mine alone. They may not necessarily reflect that of my employers and customers - both past or present. The comments left by the reviewers are theirs alone and may not reflect my opinion whether implied or not. None of the advice is warranted to be free of errors and ommision. Please use at your own risk and after thorough testing in your environment.

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Sunday, October 05, 2008

Upgrade Experience for Patchkit 11.1.0.7

The first patchkit for 11g - 11.1.0.7 - came out a few weeks ago, for Linux systems. Unlike most other patchkits, this one contains some new functionalities. Oracle patchkits are usually only bugfixes with al patches regression tested collectively; not added features. This one does have some new (albeit minor) features.

The upgrade was relatively easy but took a long time - about 30 minutes. I encountered one issue and a roadblock. Here is the annoying roadblock

A Very Import Pre-req

Do not forget to check for this pre-requisite. This is the time_zone check, as specified in the patchkit readme file.

SQL> select version from v$timezone_file;

VERSION----------4

In my case it returned 4, which means no further action is necessary. Had it returned something else, I would have to follow the instructions mentioned in MetaLink Note 568125.1.

Asking for Email for Security Notification

It was interesting to note that the installer asked me to enter my Email address to send me updates on security. Funny; I get that already anyway. So I ignored and clicked "Next". Nope; it popped a little window asking me to confirm that I do not need email. Sure, I confirmed and pressed Next. No, the same issue, it asked me again to confirm and so on. Vicious circle!

There was a little checkbox below that said "track security via MetaLink" and asked my MetaLink password (not "id", which it presumed to be my email). I checked that box and entered my email and password, and it allowed me to go further.

This is a little awkward. Not everyone will want to get the email. And in any case, a mere email will explain little about the security issues. And why would anyone want to embed his/her MetaLink password in a response file?

Cool Feature: The Pre-upgrade Script

Oracle now provides a script utlu111i.sql in the $OH/rdbms/admin directory. Run this script before you shut the database down for upgrade. It will tell a lot about the issues you may need to fix before trying the upgrade.

The Issue

The issue I encountered was while running the catupgrd.sql script. After applyng the patch, I started up with the UPGRADE option and then executed catupgrd.sql script, which promptly failed. From the error message (which, I unfortunately, I couldn't capture), it was clear that the failure was due to the presence of Data Vault feature. I apparently installed Data Vault option while installing the software. The message says it clearly: